Word: ltte
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...controlled Sri Lankan government declared Sinhala and Buddhism the official language and religion. The Tamils, who practice Hinduism and have their own language, took this action as an affront, and Vellupillai Prabhakaran founded the Tigers soon after. The group is formally known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). (See pictures of Sri Lanka on the brink of civil...
...During the first years of their existence, the Tigers were one of several resistance groups competing for support from the Sri Lankan Tamil population. But after a 1983 LTTE attack on Sri Lankan security forces sparked riots across the country that left hundreds of Tamils dead, they emerged as the dominate Tamil insurgent group. Since then, the Tigers have plotted many brutal attacks, including more than 200 by suicide bombers, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. Tens of thousands of Sri Lankans have been killed in the conflict and more have been displaced. The LTTE has bombed public buildings...
...Indian government, which reportedly provided some quiet support to the LTTE in its early years, sent peacekeeping troops to Sri Lanka in the late 1980s to help quell the violence ravaging the country. Unable to stop the bloodshed, they pulled out by 1990. Throughout the following decade, the Tigers continued to mount violent attacks, assassinating the president in 1993 and the former Prime Minister of India in 1991, among others...
...Within two years, the LTTE, who say they are fighting subjugation by the majority Sinhalese, had set up law courts, banks, hospitals and administrative offices - all the trappings of state that stand in defiance of Sri Lanka. But it is no longer the home of rebel leadership or military operations. "Kilinochchi was ceded by them a long time ago," says Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, executive director of the Centre for Policy Alternatives, a public policy group based in Colombo. "Mullaitivu is a much more vital strategic asset...
...fall, the Tigers could simply move underground, returning to the guerrilla tactics such as suicide bombings which made them famous and have contributed to the conflict's enormous death toll: more than 65,000 deaths since 1983. "Even if you occupy Kilinochchi, you're not going to defeat the LTTE as such," says Gajan Ponnambalam, a member of parliament whose party, the Tamil National Alliance, is sympathetic to the LTTE. "They'll go underground and continue the struggle in a different...